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Monday, August 22, 2005
Agusan Sur poll exec 'missing'
By Ben Serrano
Caraga correspondent
PATIN-AY, Agusan del Sur -- Like controversial former poll Commissioner Virgilio Garcilliano, Agusan del Sur Provincial Commission on Election officer and concurrent Comelec assistant regional director for Caraga Region Francisco Gonzales Pobe is reported to be missing.
But Election Assistant II Marivic Cabahug of the Agusan del Sur Comelec office said at the provincial Comelec office here that Pobe is making the rounds of the 14 municipalities under his jurisdiction in line with the ongoing registration for new voters.
Pobe figured prominently in the testimony of opposition witness, Michaelangelo Zuce, before Congress.
Zuce tagged Pobe as the one who mapped out the alleged "Voting Acquisition Plan" hatched by the administration to ensure President Arroyo's victory in the 2004 elections.
Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro tried but failed to contact Pobe through telephone in his office located at the left wing of the White House styled Agusan del Sur Provincial Capitol here many times last week.
Only Marivic Cabahug, Election Assistant II, was around in the Comelec's spacious office manned by only three office workers.
Cabahug called up Pobe through his mobile phone informing his boss about the interview and Pobe said he will return to the Comelec office where he sleeps by Friday night.
Pobe said he was at the regional Comelec office in Butuan City at that time of the phone call.
Cabahug suggested to this writer to wait but the Comelec official failed to show up even at night. The following day, Saturday morning, Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro waited for Pobe to arrive but he did not show up.
Pobe is a native of the island town of Dapa, Surigao del Norte where his family also resides.
In the course of waiting that Friday afternoon, Cabahug, who is Pobe's assistant at the Comelec office here, claimed Zuce's allegations about her boss is impossible because Pobe was in Agusan del Sur all the time during the elections.
She claimed not seeing Zuce coming to Agusan del Sur but claimed Garcillano did when the latter was still the Region 10 Comelec regional director.
Caraga Region was still part of the Comelec Regional Office for Region 10 then.
Cabahug described Pobe as a "good boss" and not strict, easy to get along with and sympathetic to small subordinates like her.
In 2001, Pobe, who was then Comelec provincial officer for Surigao del Norte, replaced Attorney Rogelio Gungob who was then the Comelec head for Agusan del Sur.
While in Surigao del Norte, Pobe also figured in a tug of war, stiff political rivalry between the groups of then senator Robert Barbers and the group of then Surigao del Norte Governor Francisco Matugas, Representative Navarro, and the politically influential Sering family.
In 2001 elections, the influential Barbers group took over the reins of political leadership in Surigao del Norte and Surigao City occupying practically all elective positions in the area until now.
face="Verdana">(August 22, 2005 issue)
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